God’s Sovereignty: Why a Good God Allows Suffering

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If God is sovereign and good, why does suffering exist? In this episode of Courier Conversations, Jeff Robinson and Travis Kerns explore the biblical truth of God’s absolute sovereignty and how it intersects with human pain, tragedy, and evil. From Job and Joseph to Romans 8 and the cross of Christ, they unpack how Scripture answers one of life’s hardest questions—and why God’s sovereignty is ultimately a source of deep comfort and hope.

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Transcript

Why Suffering Challenges Faith

Jeff 0:07

Welcome to Courier Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Robinson, and as usual with me is Travis Kerns. You all know him, and today, Travis, we are talking about a topic that is near and dear to all of us.

Travis 0:19

And but not necessarily in a good way.

Jeff 0:22

Well uh well, for the comfort it brings, it is because uh after the gospel, after the facts that we the whole world celebrated this past weekend, the death, the substitutionary death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this may be the most comforting truth I have ever learned, and that is the sovereignty of God, the absolute sovereignty of God and human suffering. And so what we're gonna deal with is a question that many Christians have that if God is sovereign and he is good, then why is there suffering in the world? And how do those things interface with one another? What does the Bible say about it, and what does that have to do with our lives? And so we're gonna take that question up today because it's always contemporary. Always, always, always. Right now we are uh our president says toward the end of a war with Iran. I don't know if it's uh we we see uh there definitely are signs to the contrary. Uh, but how do we think about God being sovereign and there being false religions in the world like Islam and wars like the one that's going on now in the Middle East and World War II, how it in 9-11. A lot of us remember that. Uh what does that ha how should Christians think about that? So that's what we want to deal with today. So talk for just a second about God's sovereignty and how you understand it and how Christians don't understand it.

Travis 1:43

Yeah, I think God's sovereignty is pretty simple. God is in control of we are not. Um, there's uh uh I remember hearing a phrase when I was younger and in college, 47 and a half million years ago, it seems like, um, that uh there are two truths in the world: God exists and I'm not him. Um and there's really one truth in the world. God exists. Um God is all sovereign, he is all powerful, he can do whatever he wants in accordance with his will and accordance with his attributes. Um, how all that works with the responsibility of humanity is not what we're dealing with today, just dealing with God's sovereignty and and human suffering. Um but God is in control. R. C. Sproul once famously said if there's a single molecule spinning outside of the control of God, then I no longer want to be alive uh anywhere in the universe. So God is all powerful, uh, he is all good, um, and that power, that sovereignty, his rule over his kingdom, is absolute. God can do what he pleases with his creation without question.

Isaiah 45 And Created Calamity

Jeff 2:49

And of course, what governs that, as you said, and I certainly is that God is good. Yep. Because if you're an evil God and he's sovereign, then we've got big problems. But since he is good, he is good in his character, perfect in his attributes and character, then it's a comforting truth, isn't it? Yep. So I'll read read a passage of scripture here. That I think, because I think this gets I think the the corner, the the sharp corners of this truth sometimes get overlooked often in church. I think pastors don't want to deal with it, although they should, because your people are thinking about it. Yep. Your people have these questions. So let's deal with the questions kind of one at a time. I'm thinking of Isaiah 44, or I'm sorry, 45, 7. Okay. Where Isaiah writes, I form light, and this is God talking. Okay, so uh one of God's uh dialogue or uh monologues. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Okay, so we're good with the first part. We can say, I form light and create darkness. Okay, good. We have day and night. We could say that's what that means if you want to go down that down that uh road. But then then he says, I make well-being good and create calamity. And you could you could translate that adversity, calamity, adversity, similar things. I am the Lord who does all these things. I think I think, and and R.C. Sproul said this one time, because this was a major part of uh a central truth in in uh his ministry, but legendary for many, many years, of course. But I think that's it. That kind of separates the men from the boys, as far as uh, do you believe this? Well, we didn't we didn't write this. John Calvin didn't write this, R.C. Sprohl didn't write this, the Holy Spirit wrote this through the pen of Isaiah. I form the light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity. So why do we have such a big problem with the create calamity part, do you think?

Travis 4:42

Uh I think it's a great question. Uh a lot of times I think we want to see God as the heavenly grandfather who sits in a rocking chair on the front porch of the Pearlie Gates, uh, handing out Werther's originals to his children and patting them on the head and say, No, no, go be a good boy, go be a good girl. And that's about as far as God goes. Um we want to just see him as this nice heavenly figure that does not bring justice or judgment or wrath or anger on his creation. But you see it across the Old and the New Testaments. Um Richard Dawkins is famous for saying the God of the Old Testament is this megalomaniacal, crazy, egotistical, um just killer. What's fascinating is you look at the New Testament, and Jesus in fact increases the penalty for sins, not just increases the penalty for them, but ups the ante, so to speak, on sins. So in the Old Testament, if you're going to be considered a murderer, you have to physically kill somebody. In the New Testament, Jesus says, if you hate your brother, you're a murderer. Um just completely different ballgame uh where it's even more strict, so to speak, than what you see in the Old Testament. But I think people have a hard time with that just because they want to see God as all-loving. You see this in uh when Christians go out into the world and talk about the necessity of uh faith and repentance in Christ and calling out people in false religions or people who are just not Christians who might be atheistic, and those people say, Oh, but Jesus is all-loving, he would accept me. No, he wouldn't. He I mean he himself says in a number of places, the New Testament says in other places, that he is the only way to the Father. So it's not an unloving thing to say, it would be unloving not to say it. Um but I think we just want God to be this, as I mentioned, loving heavenly grandfather who just kind of pats us on the head and says, now just go be a good boy, and that's about it. We don't want him to be this um this being who not only is filled with grace, but is also filled with anger. Not only filled with love, but also filled with wrath, not only filled with uh compassion, but also filled with holiness. Uh and he is all those things to the to the nth degree at the same time. So we have to reconcile these things.

Jeff 7:00

Do you think it gets back to the purpose for which we were created? Which Christians will differ depending on your theological background, say Methodists and Baptists, I mean old school Baptists here, would differ on how they would answer the question, what is the chief end of man? Is the Westminster Catechism, the Baptist catechism, first question put it, uh, to glorify him, glorify God, enjoy him forever. And so if we're made for his glory, then that changes everything, doesn't it? And I think we do have a problem with God's sovereignty because we are little D Democrats in this country in particular, and we want to vote, but we want a God who votes, who chooses or votes or has all the power.

Travis 7:35

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know this book, Nathan Hatch's Democratization of American Christianity, uh in which he argues, you know, uh when we move from England to the early colonies, we go from a system of sovereignty where when the king says it, it's just gonna happen. That's how it is. There's no argument, it's just the way it works. And that played out in their theology, the way they saw the king of England impact the way they saw the God of Scripture, or vice versa. Uh they move to the colonies, and it becomes if I work hard, I'll get rich, I'll be happy, it's all about me, and I don't have anybody controlling me. I don't want somebody sovereign over me. This is a small deed democrat or uh uh democracy where I my vote matters, where I am just as much a part of this as everybody else, and suddenly we go from understanding what sovereignty means to being people who, even in our Christianity, think we have some part to play in this, that I have a say. Now, again, this is not to talk about man's responsibility or freedom of the will or anything like that. It's simply to say, do we have the capability of telling God no? Hatch, or working alongside of him or something like that. Hatch would say, when we were in England, we would have said absolutely not, because we understood sovereignty based on the political system we lived under. Come to the U.S. and all of a sudden, oh, I've got to say I'm part of this. It's uh again, I don't think the political system influenced their theology. I think it's the other way around. But they come to the colonies and then that political ideology from Locke influences uh what they think theologically, and it eventually takes hold.

Democracy Versus A Sovereign King

Job And Worship Through Loss

Jeff 9:08

That's right. That's an excellent book. And uh so so the universe, the way scripture portrays it, uh all of God's creation, it's a monarchy. And God is a monarch. Because you think about even how in Judges, for example, they want a king. And God was their king, but that they had an earthly king, but of course there's all the corruption that went with almost all the kings of Israel and Judah. Uh but uh no, I think I think Nathan Hatch was exactly right in terms of how that's been such a tough sell, and is now a sovereign God, an absolutely meticulously sovereign God uh in this country, because of the we're little D Democrats, and we have the vote and we cast the vote and off. And yet Job says this Job, after the first two chapters of Job, and this is a a textbook in God's sovereignty and human suffering. And Job, a righteous and upright man, a godly man, not a perfect man, but uh one of the righteous men of the Near East, uh, ancient Near East of the time, uh, led his family in worship, uh, had his children, raised them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, and yet God tested him, allow Satan to smite him, as it were, in those first three chapters. And of course, Job, Job stands strong and says, Shall we keep to keep when his wife says, curse God and die, said, Well, shall we receive good from the hand of God and not the the word in Hebrew is Ra'ah, evil, meaning adversity. Shall we receive uh receive one and not the other? And he says, You speak as one of the foolish women. And so Job, of course, goes through times of doubt and questioning as his friends, and with friends like that, you wouldn't need enemies, who have it places good theology but misapply it terribly, disastrously with Job. But in the end, he's vindicating, and he and Job says this. When when God kind of pins his ears back out of the whirlwind, speaks to him out of the whirlwind. You don't want God to speak to him out of the whirlwind. I think we know uh this is proof positive of that. But Job says this in chapter 42. Then Job answered the Lord and said, after he's been silent. Yep, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand in questioning his sovereignty. I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear and I will speak, I will question you, and you make it known to me. I had heard of you by learning the ear, but now my eyes sees you, and therefore he says, I despise myself, I repent in sackcloth and ashes. And so he repents for having questioned God and questioned his sovereignty and his justice and these things. Yet we do it all the time, I think, even in the evangelical churches today, that God is good. And again, what we said earlier uh at the outset, that what brackets this is kind of the guardrails that makes this such a glorious truth, is God's goodness, that we can trust God, that God is infinitely wiser than we are, and that all governs his sovereignty. So that's what makes this such a glorious truth. Now let's let's talk about for a minute practical application. So let me hang on for a second.

Travis 11:57

I think it's also very telling that if you were to ask an average church member today, maybe for the last hundred, hundred and fifty years, give me one word to describe God. I think the overwhelming majority, by far, would say love.

Jeff 12:12

No question.

Travis 12:13

God is love.

Jeff 12:14

Without question.

Travis 12:15

Because you see it in 1 John, you see it across the text, God is love. You also see, though, in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 and 5, God is holy. You see God is blank in a number of places, but just because you see God is love does not make love the overarching attribute. In any more than mercy would be, or wrathful would be, or angry would be, or compassionate would be. It's important that we hold all of these attributes equally, because God holds them all infinitely equally. That's right. So the problem becomes, as we've uh kind of talked about here in the last few minutes, is that when we think God is more loving than something else, or more good than something else, or more compassionate or merciful than something else, is where we get into an unbiblical notion of who God is. Uh in fact, you mentioned Job, I think Job 121, we like the first 50% of it, but don't like the second 50% of it. The Lord gives, we love. The Lord takes away, nobody wants to talk about. But then Job says what? After that, blessed be the name of the Lord. So in the giving and in the taking, we need to bless and worship and honor God for who he is. He is the sovereign king of the universe and does what he wants in accordance with his attributes and in accordance with his will.

Jeff 13:30

Well, and and and and I'm glad you mentioned that because what fascinates me about that and always has is that Job Job worships God not in spite of his suffering, but out of his suffering.

Travis 13:41

Yeah, in the midst of it, yeah.

Jeff 13:42

Out of it. It it that it provokes worship in him. It doesn't provoke self-pity. Well, there are places of self-pity, but oh oh and at the end of the day, he says, My I know my redeemer lives, and one day he'll stand on this earth.

Travis 13:55

After he legitimately lost everything. His his farm, his children, his wife said, Curse God and die, he's got nothing.

Jeff 14:02

That's right.

Travis 14:02

And he says the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.

Jeff 14:05

I mean, I remember when uh I I pastored in Birmingham, Alabama about uh 15 years ago. And a lot of our listeners may remember the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history took place on March 27th. Uh I'm sorry, April 27th of uh 2011. Never forget that. I think I lived there two weeks. And I remember our church was working in recovery a few days later up north of the town, up in Cordova, which was just absolutely it was hit twice by the time.

Travis 14:30

Garrett Church and Louisville came down and helped in Coleman, Alabama.

Jeff 14:33

That's right. And a bunch of churches. Michael Ren, one of our trustees, a lot of churches came and stayed with us and did did things. And um, but I remember there's a there's a there's a house, um, a house in Cordova that looked like someone had taken a fist and smashed it up. It was it was strewn up the side of the mountain. The washing machine was in a tree. It just looked like a big giant fist had smashed it. It was odd. Uh and um and just below there, about 12 people have been killed in a field had chosen to stay home and their houses didn't have basement that they were killed. We were working in that field, in that subdivision. But I remember they had a they had a big bed sheet out there. And written in red spray paint was the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And I remember that was on that was on the front page of the Birmingham News the second day, and they interviewed the family, and and and they were Christians. And they said, We, this is just stuff. I think everybody in their house survived. And they said, I remember the quote, they said that God will use this for good. And I remember in the aftermath of that, the next Sunday, we had a huge uh turnout at church on my my second Sunday of pastoring there. So it wasn't me, I learned later it was a tornado on people thinking about these issues. Uh, but the news media was there because they're fascinated about how we would all handle it. And there's our church and Briarwood, PCA church with Harry Reeder and David Platt and his church was there, and we all they they the reporters were fascinated that we said God was on his throne, God was exactly where he was when he I think my quote was God is where he was when he put his son on the cross, he was on the throne of the universe. And uh, but then a liberal church should answer very differently. He said, God had nothing to do with this. God is nowhere near this, God is up there weeping just as uh just as stringently as you are, he's weeping over this because he didn't cause it, and he can do nothing about it. And I remember they asked all three of the me, Harry, and and David, to react to that. And my comment was, and it actually got on the air, was I'd never I would never worship a God like that because he would not be worthy of our worship.

Speaker 2 16:26

Right.

Jeff 16:26

Because he's too much like me. But I think that's uh the rub, isn't it? We we we uh we have a hard time ceding uh sovereignty. Yeah. Because we want to be sovereign. That's the first uh the first uh sin of the garden, isn't it?

Travis 16:39

Sure. It's uh and I'm glad you brought the garden up. That's where I want to go next, is Genesis three, right? So the fall takes place, God says, have anything you want, don't touch that tree. And the first thing we do is go straight for it. Uh Eve eats the fruit, tempted by the devil, eats the fruit. Um she gives it to her husband, he's so she tempts him, he eats it, and then God says, What'd you do? And Adam blames the whole thing on him. It's that woman you gave me, Eve blames the serpent. So the whole system of creation gets turned upside down from God being sovereign over man who lovingly rules over over his wife, and then the man and woman rule over creation, suddenly the whole thing is turned upside down such that creation is ruling over the woman who's ruling over the man who blames the whole thing on God. So the fall happens, and then we get to verse three, or chapter three, verse fifteen, the proto-evangelium, the first gospel in Scripture. And I will never forget being in Salt Lake City when we lived there working with the North American Mission Board. We had Chuck Lawless from Southeastern Seminary come out and do a weekend seminar on spiritual warfare. And he he first verse he talked about is Genesis 3.15, and the way he described it, I've never heard it described this way before, but it struck me. So the verse says, I will put hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel. And what we usually focus on there is the second part of the verse with Jesus uh giving the mortal head wound, the fatal head wound, but Satan striking on the heel so it's not mortal. It's not a great wound, but it's not fatal. But the first part of the verse is interesting. This is God speaking, I will put hostility. New American Standard says, I will put enmity between you and the woman. God will place the warfare. God will put it there. This is before the first part of 315 is before the second part of 315. So the enmity, the strife, the trouble, the suffering comes before the gospel. Which is an absolutely fascinating thing to look at because what we often want to think about is the gospel before the suffering, but what we see is the suffering before the gospel. The same thing happens in the life of Christ. The suffering on the cross takes place before Friday takes place before Sunday. The suffering on the cross and the death of Christ takes place before the resurrection. The suffering happens before the completion of the gospel. But we just don't want the suffering part. We really don't. We want to be saved from all the suffering, we want to be saved from all these things at the end of time, you know, keep me from all these bad things that are happening, all these trials and tribulations that are going to take place. God, take me, you know, let me meet you halfway in the clouds or whatever it may be. It's a it it tends to be just more of a let's let's hopefully get out of this and not have to go through it. And that's not a biblical way to think through things.

Speaker 3 19:23

No, there's no crown without the cross. Right. But the cross, the crown the cross before the crown.

Jeff 19:27

Yeah. Well, one of my favorite stories in human history that's ever been written is the story of Joseph. Love the story of Joseph because it is just full of comfort. Because you know, know that the story of the Joseph's brothers, Joseph's one of the twelve children of uh of um uh of the the patriarchs, one of the twelve, uh one of the twelve patriarchs uh has 11 brothers. Uh he's the favorite son uh of his father. Father gives him a coat of many colors, all these things, and his brothers hate him, they're jealous, they hate him and sell him into slavery, uh you know, fake his death, sell him into slavery in Egypt, goes into Egypt, winds up being being thrown in jail there, but becomes a number two man in Egypt, basically, because God has uh because God raises him up. And, you know, there's a famine that hits. Joseph is used to store away food for seven years, uh, during the seven years of plenty, for the seven years of famine, and eventually his brothers have to come and look for food because there's food in Egypt. They don't recognize Joseph, Joseph recognizes them, and Joseph forgives them. Once they know it's Joseph, they think, uh-oh, we've had it. Yep. They contrive this story that our father said, Why uh that you need to forgive us. Well, and and uh Job uh or rather uh that rather um Joseph forgives them, and then chapter 50 of Genesis, verse 20, and this is found in Genesis 35 to 50. If you want to read this, great, great reading. Um Joseph said to them, Um his brothers came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants. So they're they're just ready to do anything but be killed by their brother, who certainly is going to uh seek retribution against them, right? He's gonna pay them back for what they've done to him, because they've done some terrible things to him. But Joseph said to them, Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? In other words, I'm not your judge, I'm not in the place of God. Life and death is not in my hands. And he says, This as for you, you meant it for evil against me. But God meant it for good. Who meant it for good? God did. All this suffering, all this, I mean, he was thrown into jail. His uh uh Potiphar's wife tried to come on to him, get him to have an affair with her, and he trumped up charges because he wouldn't do that, and blind, and through, and all that kind of thing. So he was spent all this time in jail, was forgotten by the baker uh when he promised to bring his name up before the king so he could get mercy. But he says, as for you, so he went through all this, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Uh the the the kingdom of God, that the God's people are saved because of the food that's available in Egypt. They come to live there. And of course, that's the line of the of the Messiah that's preserved.

unknown 21:59

Uh

Jeff 22:00

By God's hand. But that's it. To me, that's where this is all summarized. In in Genesis 50, verse 20. As you as for you, you meant evil against me. God meant it for good. Why, how do evil and su uh God's sovereignty come together? That's it.

Travis 22:13

Yep. And Paul picks up on this in Romans 8, right? The famous verse in 828. Talk about that. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Now, first, second year students, third year students in Bible college or studying religion in a university setting will always have debates about word meanings in the Old and New Testaments. They love debating these words. One of those words that we can debate is all. What does all mean? Well, it's pretty simple. All means all. Right. So when Paul says all things work together for the good of those who love God, all things means everything. That's right. Good, bad, indifferent, doesn't matter. All things work together for the good of those who love God. It doesn't say for our happiness. It doesn't say for our pleasure. It doesn't say for our joy. It also doesn't say rather for our discomfort or unhappiness or lack of joy. It says for our good. What is our good? I would go back to the Westminster standards that you quoted earlier. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So our good is the glorification of God. So even in the midst of suffering, we should glorify God. We should, alongside of Christ, God, if it's your will, take this cup from me. But only if it's your will. Otherwise, he's glorifying God even through the crucifixion, through the worst thing that could ever happen, has ever happened in the history of humanity, there's still praise given to God. And if God doesn't mean the cross for good three days after Friday when Sunday happens, then nothing can be meant for good. But even in the midst of our suffering, even in the midst of whatever might be going on in the world, we have to look back to the cross. Alvin Plantiker wrote a great article, Christian philosophy who taught at Notre Dame forever, wrote a great article a number of years ago called O. Felix Coolpa. And in the article, he argues that the reason we face difficulties, strife, problems in the world is to point us back to the cross. That it's always about the cross, that we should always look backwards to it. So a mutual friend of ours for a number of years at Southern would say from the beginning of Scripture, it's looking towards the cross, and as you get to the end of Scripture, it's looking back to the cross. The cross is the focal point of everything.

The Cross Planned And Lawless Hands

Books To Read And Send Questions

Jeff 24:22

Promise and fulfillment. Yep. And and Dr. Sproul, who taught this uh truth so well, and this is where I first encountered in a deep way a year almost three decades ago reading his books. Um said, either God is sovereign or he is not God. And I think that's right. Either God is sovereign, meticulously sovereign in every way over every molecule and atom and subatomic particle and all these things, or he's not God. And I think that's true. And that gives us great comfort. Because look here here back in the story of Joseph. Think about this. It's it's God's sovereignty that enables him to see God's plan and forgive his brothers. So it's very practical. It's not just giving us comfort, yes, it gives us comfort, but also it enables us to forgive when we've been wrong because we see that somehow mysteriously, in a way we may never know on this earth, we know that that's part of God's plan, even though we've been wronged. And that somehow God's going to use that for it for my good as his son and his glory. And so it's that sovereignty that enables Joseph to say, No, I forgive you. So it's very practical. And I want to come back on another episode and deal with this in terms of the questions of, okay, if God is sovereign, why pray? If God is sovereign, is man responsible? The answer is yes. Yep. And uh, and uh, what about missions and evangelism? We'll do that in a neck and maybe the next episode. But let's let's let's leave it here. We're almost out of time here. And uh you you mentioned the cross. He always ended the cross. Always, always, always. Acts 2, uh, verse 23. This Jesus, and this is Peter speaking here, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Okay, so there you have it. He's delivered up not by accident, not plan D, as some theologies would have us believe. You crucified and killed by the hands of men with no choice, good men, no, lawless men, held responsible for their actions. They had evil in the heart. They did what they wanted to, but it fulfilled God's plan. And brought redemption to the world, brought redemption to sinners, saved sinners because of the evil. And see, that's how God's sovereignty worked. That sovereign plan is what brought the greatest story ever told and the best news. It's why you and I are sitting here talking about this right now. The cross of Jesus Christ. And so, what a glorious, glorious truth this is. There's a lot more to say, and we'll say it next time. I want to recommend a book that I'm reading. I will say, Yeah, recommend one, then I'll recommend one. Let you recommend one. We'll get the I'll give you the last word for it for a change. Uh and we know how that goes. But uh book I'm reading right now by Timothy Whitmer, uh Presbyterian pastor, uh, wrote some really good, written some really good books on ecclesiology. But this is called God is God and I'm not. How God's sovereignty matters every day. I highly recommend that book. It's from Ligeneer, uh R.C. Sprohl's uh or late uh brother, dear brother R.C. Sproul's ministry. Uh I've almost finished it. In fact, I'm on chapter 10. I'm looking at it here in front of me. If God is sovereign, why bother to share your faith? We want to deal with those questions on the next episode. And so that's my book recommendation on this truth. It's it's a brand new book that just came out maybe six weeks ago or something.

Travis 27:21

Yeah. Mine is by uh John Feinberg. It's called The Many Faces of Evil. So in the book he deals with the three what he thinks are the three facets of evil. So he deals with the theological problem of evil, he deals with the philosophical problem of evil, he deals with the pastoral problem of evil. Uh so what what does it look like scripturally? What does it look like philosophically, how philosophers through history dealt with it? How do pastors deal with it from a counseling perspective? But the the book itself is worth the price of the book just for the last chapter when he deals with a very personal issue that he and his wife faced and how they dealt with it and ways that people helped them that were both helpful and not so helpful. Uh but the Many Faces of Evil by John Fiber, absolutely phenomenal. Yep.

Jeff 28:03

Well, and I second that. I read that in a seminary, you probably did too, and I've read it since then, and it is a tremendous book. Good, good, good stuff. And the next book in the uh series of dialogical theology through career Courier Publishing, which I'm writing, is on the providence of God, and we'll deal with all these things in a dialogical manner. That will be out, Lord willing, uh, by the fall, uh, next Reformation Day, so you can be looking for that. Uh, but we will take this up next. This is such a deep topic, it's hard. We can't handle it in one episode. We've got to have at least two. We could handle it in an infinite number of them, probably, but we will deal with some of those other questions next time. And if you have questions out there, please uh email them to us uh and uh look look at the email on our website, send that, and we'll be do our best to try to answer those in the next episode. And so next time, believe in and rest in. Great solid. Thank you for listening to this podcast of the Baptist Courier and Courier Publishing. Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms, give us a five-star review, and send any question you want us to consider to Courier Conversations at gmail.com. If you prefer to watch our conversations, check us out on YouTube by clicking the link in the description.